[poeticLLama]

Key reasons for the choice of hexagons in h3 - hexagons have have low distortion as compared to squares when you attempt tessellation of a spherical shape. You just require 12 pentagons to complete this tessellation. - all six neighboring cells are equidistant from the center of a cell.

One of the use case Uber was trying to solve here, was to show which regions had surge pricing - on the uber app for the drivers. With h3 and hexagons you can argue it looks a teensy bit better with smoother gradients https://h3geo.org/docs/comparisons/s2.

I am not sure whether Uber uses h3 for other use cases like - finding the closest drivers next to a location.

See this presentation from Uber on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay2uwtRO3QE